Lines that lack hash or dollar signs are pastes from config files. They
should be copied verbatim or adapted, without the indentation tab.
+apt-get install commands are suggestions for required dependencies.
+They conform to an Ubuntu 13.04 system but may well work with Debian
+or earlier and later versions of Ubuntu.
+
Prerequisites
-------------
(others might want to use `/usr/local/bin` instead). We will download source
code files to the `~/src` directory.
- # sudo adduser bitcoin
+ # sudo adduser bitcoin --disabled-password
# su - bitcoin
$ mkdir ~/bin ~/src
$ echo $PATH
$ mkdir -p ~/src/electrum
$ cd ~/src/electrum
+ $ sudo apt-get install git
$ git clone https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server.git server
$ chmod +x ~/src/electrum/server/server.py
$ ln -s ~/src/electrum/server/server.py ~/bin/electrum-server
-### Step 3. Download Bitcoind stable from git & patch it
+### Step 3. Download Bitcoind stable & patch it
-In order for the latest versions of Electrum to work properly we currently recommend bitcoind 0.8.4 stable.
-0.8.4 can be downloaded from github or sourceforge and it needs to be patched with an electrum specific patch.
+In order for the latest versions of Electrum to work properly we currently recommend bitcoind 0.8.5 stable.
+0.8.5 can be downloaded from github or sourceforge and it needs to be patched with an electrum specific patch.
bitcoin@master i.e. git head may not currently work with electrum-server even if the patch applies cleanly.
- $ cd ~/src && wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.4/bitcoin-0.8.4-linux.tar.gz
- $ tar xfz bitcoin-0.8.4-linux.tar.gz
- $ cd bitcoin-0.8.4-linux/src
+ $ cd ~/src && wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.5/bitcoin-0.8.5-linux.tar.gz
+ $ tar xfz bitcoin-0.8.5-linux.tar.gz
+ $ cd bitcoin-0.8.5-linux/src
$ patch -p1 < ~/src/electrum/server/patch/patch
$ cd src
+ $ sudo apt-get install make g++ python-leveldb libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libdb++-dev
$ make USE_UPNP= -f makefile.unix
- $ strip ~/src/bitcoin-0.8.4-linux/src/src/bitcoind
- $ ln -s ~/src/bitcoin-0.8.4-linux/src/src/bitcoind ~/bin/bitcoind
+ $ strip ~/src/bitcoin-0.8.5-linux/src/src/bitcoind
+ $ ln -s ~/src/bitcoin-0.8.5-linux/src/src/bitcoind ~/bin/bitcoind
### Step 4. Configure and start bitcoind
package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
+ $ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
$ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
$ sudo apt-get install python-openssl
You can fetch recent copies of electrum leveldb databases and further instructions
from the Electrum full archival server foundry at:
-http://electrum-foundry.no-ip.org/
+http://foundry.electrum.org/
+
+
+### Step 9. Create a self-signed SSL cert
+
+To run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
+using openssl. You could just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports in the config and run
+without, but this is not recommended.
+
+Use the sample code below to create a self-signed cert with a recommended validity
+of 5 years. You may supply any information for your sign request to identify your server.
+They are not currently checked by the client except for the validity date.
+When asked for a challenge password just leave it empty and press enter.
+
+ $ openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out server.pass.key 2048
+ $ openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in server.pass.key -out server.key
+ writing RSA key
+ $ rm server.pass.key
+ $ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
+ ...
+ Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
+ State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
+ Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: electrum-server.tld
+ ...
+ A challenge password []:
+ ...
+
+ $ openssl x509 -req -days 730 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
-### Step 9. Configure Electrum server
+The server.crt file is your certificate suitable for the ssl_certfile= parameter and
+server.key corresponds to ssl_keyfile= in your electrum server config
+
+Starting with Electrum 1.9 the client will learn and locally cache the SSL certificate
+for your server upon the first request to prevent man-in-the middle attacks for all
+further connections.
+
+If your certificate is lost or expires on the server side you currently need to run
+your server with a different server name along with a new certificate for this server.
+Therefore it's a good idea to make an offline backup copy of your certificate and key
+in case you need to restore it.
+
+### Step 10. Configure Electrum server
Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
file includes the database setup, bitcoind RPC setup, and a few other
Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
-If you're looking to run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
-using openssl. Otherwise you can just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports and run
-without.
-
-### Step 10. Tweak your system for running electrum
+### Step 11. Tweak your system for running electrum
Electrum server currently needs quite a few file handles to use leveldb. It also requires
file handles for each connection made to the server. It's good practice to increase the
open files limit to 16k. This is most easily achived by sticking the value in .bashrc of the
root user who usually passes this value to all unprivileged user sessions too.
- $ sudo sed -i '$a ulimit -n 16384' /root/.bashrc
+ $ sudo sed -i '$a ulimit -n 16384' /root/.bashrc
We're aware the leveldb part in electrum server may leak some memory and it's good practice to
to either restart the server once in a while from cron (preferred) or to at least monitor
more often.
Two more things for you to consider:
+
1. To increase security you may want to close bitcoind for incoming connections and connect outbound only
+
2. Consider restarting bitcoind (together with electrum-server) on a weekly basis to clear out unconfirmed
transactions from the local the memory pool which did not propagate over the network
-### Step 11. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
+### Step 12. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
`~/src/electrum/server`. You can use them as a starting point to create a
init script for your system.
-### Step 12. Test the Electrum server
+### Step 13. Test the Electrum server
We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
git://git.novaco.in / electrum-server.git / blobdiff